


polaroid picture

by pan_dora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Family Fluff, Fluff, parents!steo, soft steo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 03:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20650142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pan_dora/pseuds/pan_dora
Summary: Shortly after moving back to Beacon Hills, their little girl finds a polaroid of Theo kissing a stranger. Making her own conclusions, she tells Stiles about it.





	polaroid picture

**Author's Note:**

> [sunel0](https://sunel0.tumblr.com/) prompted me with #64 for this [prompt thingamajic](https://bellamyblakesz.tumblr.com/post/127157748980/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you). 
> 
> #64 - "Are you ticklish?"
> 
> I added a translation for the Polish parts (which I hope I haven't butchered. I studied it ages ago. So, I tried my best). They don't work on mobile, I think. :/

“Tata!” A whirlwind of curls bounces through the hallway and jumps into his arms without any warning. After almost three years of being jumped like a tree for climbing, he’s not particularly taken by surprise anymore. Her curls fall over his shoulders as she hugs him in a possible strangulation attempt. “Tęsknię za tobą,” she whispers tightening her grip even further; now’s the moment Stiles has to admit that his four-year-old has surpassed every other human in strength. With her DNA setup, it’s not really that hard of a skill to master. 

Stiles quirks his brows catching Theo’s eye. “Ja za tobą też, monkey.“ He glances at the clock over the kitchen door. Although it's the weekend, it’s already way past her bedtime.

“Something’s wrong. I tried to figure out what,” Theo explains pushing himself off the wall next to their daughter’s room. “but she’s not talking to me.” He moves the mess of hair out of the way to kiss him hello, the typical scent of hospital and soap and disinfect still clinging to him. Theo can't be home much longer than Stiles. Weekend shifts are the worst. They're trying to keep them as rare as possible or try, at the very least, that only one of them has to work, but neither the supernatural nor emergency surgeries are considerate of their family life. Luckily, Lydia or Kira often and happily watch over their daughter.

Tara pulls away with an audible growl.

“Hey,” Stiles says poking her gently but insistently in the side, “do we growl at people?”

She sniffs audibly. “Nie.” Rubbing her nose, Tara looks over her shoulder at Theo who watches her with crossed arms. She doesn’t say anything, and he’s not pushing for an apology. He just seems to be extremely tired. Between his shifts at the hospital and all the work with the move, even Theo seems to be exhausted.

Coming home is usually a peaceful endeavour. Sure, Tara has the typical pre-schooler moments of wanting to get her will through any means, but there’s no fighting, no not talking to each other. The worst usually is Tara pouting once in a blue moon. She’s a surprisingly easy child for being _theirs_. No anger issues, no tempter tantrums, no screaming. She’s not the nicest girl in the world. They love her, and they would readily kill anything and anyone for her, but she is still Theo and his kid. Stiles _knows _how she can be. With his loose mouth and Theo's attitude, she isn’t always easy to handle.

“Powiedz mi co jest nie tak.“ He can’t help her if she doesn’t talk to him either.

Tara sniffles again, her heel digging into a nasty bruise on his lower back – one Stiles wished he could blame combat training for. Whoever said a child kills a couple’s time for intimacy clearly had the wrong partner. Theo’s sex drive and a bit of flexibility is all one needs.

“Tata to kłamca.”

Stiles draws his brows together and glances at Theo again. If there’s one thing he’s a hundred percent sure about it’s that Theo isn’t a liar. Not anymore at least. He’s past that. They’re past that. It’s also a rule in their family. No matter what happened, no matter what someone has done, they will _always_ tell the truth. No ifs. No buts. Zero exceptions. Theo told him about the time he almost killed a guy out of jealousy, Stiles told him that he wants to move back home despite their troubled relationships in and with Beacon Hills, and Tara told them about being the one who put sand in Billy's yoghurt.

“Why’s Dad a liar?” Although Stiles and Theo agreed on raising her bilingual just like Stiles’ parents did with him up until his mother’s death, Theo isn’t secure enough in Polish to understand everything; and while Stiles usually talks to Tara in Polish, this seems to be a situation in which Theo should be fully informed about everything that’s going on.

Tara isn’t quite ready to switch to English to involve Theo. “Widział kobietę.”

“He saw a woman?” Stiles almost laughs as Theo’s lips part clearly affronted. The guy is probably the only person who is more offended by being accused of seeing someone behind Stiles’ back than killing another person – it’s also more likely for Theo to murder someone than cheat on Stiles. So, there’s that. “Ciotka Lydia?” But that wouldn’t make any sense. If it were Lydia or any of her other aunts, Tara would just say that; she also wouldn’t make such a fuss about it.

As expected, Tara shakes her head and struggles around until Stiles lets go of her. The second she drops to the floor she bounds back into her bedroom without elaborating. “What the hell is going on?”

Theo simply shrugs. “Stiles, I didn’t-.”

“Oh, don’t be an idiot,” he interrupts him wrapping his arms around Theo’s shoulders. “Maybe she saw you with a colleague?”

Theo sighs. “I haven’t reached lunch date status with anyone yet.” His first week at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital hasn’t been easy. The head of the department and most of his surgeon colleagues aren’t the problem; it’s the nurses that apparently make life hard for him. Melissa isn’t usually a bitter person but their shared past makes working together rather complicated. Stiles has it much easier at the station even though he’s technically stationed here via the FBI. They all know him _and_ he’s the one in charge of the Supernatural Division, so, they don’t give him any trouble because they know he’s not about to take anybody’s glory; he’s trying to help.

“Impossible,” Stiles says kissing Theo’s cheek then temple, “at least one has to have fallen for your charm.”

“My charm?”

Stiles hums. “I will always remember fondly the first thing you said to me after the first time we had sex.” They went home after a stakeout. Theo has been acting weird the whole night, and when they stood in front of Stiles’ door, he kissed him. Within mere seconds, he decided to forget about the three dates rule, dragged Theo up the stairs and loved every single second of what followed. “’Are you ticklish?’”

“You were _laughing_,” Theo mutters poking his side. “At least I didn’t ask you if I was any good.”

Stiles pats his back with a chuckle. “Because your ego is the size of a dinosaur.” And yes, he did laugh – but not because of Theo’s performance or something. He laughed because he just had the most surreal experience in the history of experiences ever. Not the sex, while that was mind-blowing for multiple different reasons, Theo wrapping his arms around him for post-orgasmic cuddles was what cracked him up. The big bad chimera turned out to be a cuddler. Stiles could not _not_ laugh at that revelation.

“Tata!” Tara yells loud and sudden enough that Theo flinches in surprise, “chodź tu!”

“I’m coming,” Stiles calls back kissing Theo on the cheek once more. Time to see what evidence she brings to the table. Probably nothing of value even though he’s not going to tell her just that; especially because her flair for the overdramatic is clearly something she inherited from him. Just like her nose. The Gajos nose, his grandmother likes to call it. She basically treats it like a family heirloom. Stiles can’t deny that he loves to see something of his between those bright blue eyes, sharp features and dirty blonde hair she got from Theo.

When Stiles enters the bedroom, he’s greeted with a Polaroid picture of Theo kissing- “Oh.”

Theo, who followed him, sighs. “I hoped that could wait a few more years.”

Stiles elbows him in the ribs, then pushes Tara's abundance of plush toys away to sit down on her bed. These are most definitively the type of parental problems his father warned him about; just that their problems are on a whole new level. “Do you remember that super-secret about Dad?” Stiles pets the mattress next to him.

Climbing onto the bed, Tara nods. “Yes,” she breathes looking over at Theo. Of all the people they’ve told, her reaction has been by far the calmest. In fact, she leaned over to him with her best contemplating face and wondered if he could scare Billy in case he kept being mean to her. That was the first time Stiles needed to be the party-pooper. Dealing with a pouty three-year-old was one thing, having a disappointed Theo on top of that completely different.

Although, he, at the very least, was easily distracted.

Theo crosses and uncrosses his arms, then sits down in a cross-legged position in front of the bed.

“Do you wanna learn another super-secret?”

Her eyes light up like every little kid's eyes do whenever they are excited about doing something they’re not usually allowed to do; like eating candy before dinner because they have a grandfather who completely ignores every single rule Stiles has ever set in stone when it comes to food. Sure, she may be a werewolf but that doesn’t mean she should eat like one too. So, as expected, Tara nods with wide eyes.

Stiles ruffles her hair. “Where are we keeping our super-secrets?”

Almost conspirationally, Tara leans forward. “Under my blanket.”

“Exactly.” Stiles helps her crawl underneath the blanket, then sits down on the edge of the bed. “Okay, so- you remember what Aunt Kira and Noshiko told you, right?” They introduced her to the supernatural world bit by bit. Whenever they were talking about a supernatural creature they knew, Theo and Stiles invited them over. Kira and Noshiko had to visit a couple days ago, although they didn’t want to invite them until they were finished with more than Tara's bedroom. She, however, wouldn’t stop bugging them and insisted they could hang out in her room. She's not any less nosy than Stiles himself.

“They’re kitsunes.”

Stiles nods. “Exactly.” 

Theo sits down next to him. “Tata,” he says slowly, almost like he’s thinking about every word individually, “is a lot like them.”

Tara’s mouth goes round and she leans forward. “Am I like them too?”

“No, you’re like Dad and Uncle Liam.”

“And Uncle Brett?”

Theo scoffs like he always does whenever Brett is even mentioned. For someone who loves to let the past be the past, he carries a giant grudge against the guy. There's a normal foundation of jealousy, and then there's what Theo feels for Brett Talbot. The fact that he's one of Tara's godfathers probably still eats away at him, although he pretends it doesn't and he agreed to Stiles' request. Since their back in Beacon Hills, having ties to one of the strongest pack around is the logical conclusion. If something were to happen to Theo and Stiles, she would be taken care of. That's all that matters. Theo knows that, even though he hates it with every fibre of his body.

“And Uncle Brett.” Stiles nods turning a bit to face her as she purses her lips in a way that reminds him strongly of Lydia. Those two have hung out entirely too much since they’re back in Beacon Hills. “What?” The way she notices things at her young age is scary.

Tara scrunches up her nose. “Was Bacia Claudia a kitsune too?”

Stiles is pleasantly surprised that she remembered more than a kitsune’s cool abilities. But that’s also where the complication begins. They don’t want her to tell her about the nogitsune yet. Being a werewolf definitively shows in Tara’s rather aggressive manner, yet she still fears spooky stories because she knows what lurks in the shadows; as opposed to probably ninety-eight percent of the children in her kindergarten – Stiles is not so sure about Brenda and her twin Philip, they have this _look_ and they took Tara in almost a bit too quick for being two years older. Learning that monsters out there possessed her dad is probably not the best bedtime story, especially since he’s never made a secret out of his job. But she doesn’t know that Theo is a chimera. Or what happened to the girl she’s named after. That some fox demon took control over Stiles’ mind, slaughtered a bunch of people and then split his body in two is probably a story they can tell her in about ten years.

“No,” Stiles says biting his bottom lip.

Theo taps his thigh then leans back on his elbows to look at their daughter. “He became a kitsune because of another very special kitsune.” _Very special_ is a combination of words Stiles definitively wouldn’t have chosen himself to describe the nogitsune but he’s not going to point that out now. 

“Oh.” Tara looks at Theo, too interested in the topic to be mad at him. “Like Spiderman?”

Stiles exchanges a quick glance with Theo, who only shrugs, before he turns back to Tara. “A bit like that, yeah.” As long as it helps her understand where they're coming from, this analogy holds up. They can leave it like that for a few years. As a werewolf, she is safe from possession anyway, and as far as Stiles remembers, he hasn’t found a case like his in any book or research paper. “So, do you remember what kitsunes can do?”

Putting the picture in her lap, Tara uses her fingers to count. “Aunt Kira can make piorun. She can get super old. She can't get the flu._Oh_!” She squeals and picks up the polaroid, waves it in Stiles’ direction. “She can become a boy! Did you become a girl?”

“Yes, I did.” Internally preparing himself for the inevitable question of _why_ and a very long conversation about how babies are made, it takes Stiles by complete surprise when Tara tosses the picture aside and crawls over the bedding and onto Theo’s lap. Nobody in this family is great at apologising but they always make do somehow. Instead of telling Theo how sorry she is for accusing him to be a liar, she wraps her arms around him, buries her face in his chest and tells him how much she loves him.

Stiles ruffles her hair and picks up the polaroid. It must’ve fallen out of the book he kept it in during the move. After all, they intended to keep this conversation from happening until she learned exactly how babies are made. Tara is the one good thing that came out of the whole nogitsune disaster. All that fucking PTSD, all those nightmares, all those sleepless nights, having the chance to have a kid that’s actually theirs – having _her_ – it made all that fuckery worth it. 

“You wanna sleep in our bed tonight?” Theo asks with his face pressed into her messy curls. This is his way of accepting the unspoken apology, although, Stiles doubts Theo was actually angry with her. She couldn't have known, and Theo is never really angry; it's like he doesn't have it in him to decline any of Tara's wishes much less fight with Stiles. Which oftentimes results in the phrase 'go ask Dad'. That way he doesn't have to say no and doesn't risk a discussion with Stiles. That's something they definitively have to work on.

Tara hugs him tighter nodding feverishly.

“You’re only allowed in if you’re not ticklish,” Theo fake-whispers smirking at Stiles; heat creeps into his cheeks at his words - as always, his mind goes places whenever Theo as much as mentions being ticklish in any context. “Are you ticklish, monkey?” They both know she is, and Tara begins giggling before Theo even touched her.

Stiles can’t stop smiling as he watches them; his happiness, his life, his everything. Without a doubt, without hesitation, he would do whatever he had to do to keep Tara laughing, to keep Theo from falling off the edge again. They all have the chance at something good. If anyone were to ruin this, Stiles would tear them limb from limb. Theo would do the same. That’s how they are; messed up, overprotective, a bit possessive and more in love with each other than probably healthy.

But they’re happy, and that what matters to him. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me over on [tumblr](https://msmischief101.tumblr.com/) or the [steo discord server](https://discord.gg/P2GBy4).


End file.
